Arizona-Southern California Outages on September 8, 2011 Causes and Recommendations

Author:

FERC / NERC

Year:

2012

Abstract:

This report describes an outage in Arizona. On the afternoon of September 8, 2011, an 11-minute system disturbance occurred in the Pacific Southwest, leading to cascading outages and leaving approximately 2.7 million customers without power.1 The outages affected parts of Arizona, Southern California, and Baja California, Mexico. All of the San Diego area lost power, with nearly one-and-a-half million customers losing power, some for up to 12 hours. The disturbance occurred near rush hour, on a business day, snarling traffic for hours. Schools and businesses closed, some flights and public transportation were disrupted, water and sewage pumping stations lost power, and beaches were closed due to sewage spills. Millions went without air conditioning on a hot day.